Sunday, March 12, 2006 

If you've got pimples...

If you’ve got pimples – girls wont fuck you
-Marlyn Manson in Bowling
for Columbine

To his utter horror, an otherwise handsome chap finds himself being cold shouldered by the fairer sex in his college. The distressed "student" turns to a trusted friend for advice. The advice? Simple: Vicco Turmeric. On constant application of the said product our protagonist lands up with that chick he had always been eyeing... and then they lived happily ever after – ‘they’ who? The chap, the chick and Vicco Turmeric… and oh I almost forgot, the jingle! "Vicco Turmeric, It’s not a cosmetic!" … just in case of the viewer being in the habit of mistaking aphrodisiacs for cosmetics.

If you’ve got pimples – girls won’t fuck you. Manson says that it is through creation of fear that commercials like these work. Oh no, not the fear of sprouting a pimple. No sir, it is the fear of peer rejection, the fear of losing ones identity in the multitudes of humanity, fear of not having a chick to flaunt, fear of not getting laid. Commercials like these, that exploit your fears do not try to make you ‘want’ the product. They instead make you ‘need’ it. Wants are those things you can live without. But needs… you can’t live without them. You just have to have Vicco Turmeric, you just can’t live with pimples.
"The seven deadly sins" are some of the advertisers most reliable tools: Pride, Envy (Neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride; uski sari meri sari se saphed kaise?) Wrath (Mehmaan lagti hain meri! … lolz), Lust (The Axe Effect), Gluttony (No one can eat just one), Avarice (All those "Special offer!"s) , and Sloth ( Sit back, put up feet, pour glass, survey kingdom… Chivas Regal). Sins or not, those seven things form an inalienable part of human psyche and they are exploited indiscriminately in commercials. They’ll use every god damned trick in the book to send you scuttling to the nearest store – patriotism, philanthropy, aims, aspirations, health and well being… I mean the list is endless they will strike a knife through every hole in your armour. So, whats the big fucking deal about it? The fact that an advertisement more often than not exploits human weaknesses rather than highlighting the virtues of the product they intend to sell. That’s the big fucking deal about it. To me it sounds like manipulation bordering on charlatanism if not deceit, and I hate being manipulated more than being out right deceit. Btw is hutch selling dogs these days?
And yes, one more thing, if you think you are a customer to television channels and newspapers you are wrong. You are the product. The businessmen pushing forward their commercials are the customers. Media houses don’t make money from the measly amounts you pay to the cable guy and the newspaper guy. They make money by selling your time and money to their advertisers.
At the time of independence the Indian newspaper business was boasting of many reputable names, names which have now become synonymous with sex and sleaze. When profits started to matter more than empowering people with information, they crossed that fringing football field that separates news from entertainment. Today their primary asset is not their credibility, but their circulation, the former sought by the reader; the latter sought by the advertiser. A naïve observer would have presumed that credibility and circulation are concurrent goals. But it was not to be so. Somewhere down the line Indians decided they wanted entertainment not news and the newspapers decided that they wanted circulation not credibility. So, began The Great Indian Media Metamorphosis, scantily clad women and men battled for space with those in kurtas – no angels themselves, but people with power to make a change, if change is what is demanded of them at gun point or at the ballot. Lifestyle pages have pushed out farmer’s news (yes, long ago, a page or two used to be devoted to the farmer, you can still catch it in The Hindu if you are interested. But its a wasted enterprise, really, you see farmers are illiterate, farmers don’t buy fancy dresses or dine at fancy restaurants, they just indulge in frivolous exercises like committing suicides and starving to death, really no point to advertising on that page). The changes are many. The question is why did they have to be this way? If circulation numbers were all that mattered there were other ways to pump them up. Why this way? Why are we reading about how much fun the filthy rich are having? Why are we reading about American football and European League soccer? Why is the Prime Minister called MMS and not by the name that his parents lovingly bestowed upon him? Why was the Finance Minister’s picture morphed to show him holding up a beer mug when he announced the budget? Why is Lalu Prasad Yadav a comedian and not a serious threat to our democratic institutions? Why is serious news trivialized?
The answer can be found in the post ’91 reforms and globalisation. When India joined the WTO we promised to make our economy "investor friendly", "foreign investor friendly" actually. But there were problems. How can you expect a people surviving on roti and chawal (rice) to embrace Mc. Donald’s and Pizza hut. How can you expect Indian women, who for generations had clad themselves in traditional dresses to suddenly jump in to a pair of jeans and pull down a T-shirt {for the feminist: I am not against alternative dressing styles. My emphasis is on how those styles come about. I would not give a shit if all the chicks in Delhi dress like Britney Spears…. Come to think of it, they are dressing like Britney.) So how are foreign products to sell in India? It has a billion people alright, but it doesn’t make a difference to Mc, D’s or Pepe if they are not civilized enough to appreciate their products. What was to be done? Consumers had to be turned into potential customers. Indian consumer’s wants and needs had to converge with those of the consumers these businesses were serving in the west. Indian way of life had to be overhauled. The media promptly got on to the job, its new customers had much more cash to spare and a lot of advertising to do… and so it began – The Great Indain Media Metamorphosis.
It was not just about readership numbers now, but also about the receptivity (to commercials) and buying power of the readership. It was about building an impressionable, consumption crazy readership, it was about creating that ‘itch to shop’ in the readers it was all about ‘civilising’ us Indians. And for this the media had to sell us western lifestyle and culture before selling us their products. Some thing else was sold in the process – the integrity of media houses. The trivialization of serious news is not accidental, nor is the spice added to it. Newspapers after all are newspapers, they have to publish news, or at least something that can be dressed up as news. But then publishing serious news has a lot of drawbacks. Who’d have the appetite for a burger if they have just read of starving kids labouring in Sivakasi? Who’d have the wish to dress up like movie stars when millions in India are doing with a single piece of garment? Social concern and consumerism are mutually exclusive and often conflicting behavioural paradigms. A single newspaper cannot foster both in its readers. So we have trivia and entertainment dished out early in the morning in the name of news. The likes of Lalu Prasad Yadav are nothing to worry about, they are just clowns in Indian politics, so you just go ahead and turn to page3 and drool over those great bods and while you are at it check out the ads as well. Now, that’s like a good boy.
I have talked about us being westernized and there is something I have to clarify about it. There is nothing wrong with accepting another culture or even imbibing it into one’s own, on the contrary I think it is a good thing. Acceptance of a culture is a conscious and vibrant process. What’s happening in Indian metros is not. It’s more like dressing up a carcass in colourful apparel. Our youngsters are brought up on a diet of cartoons and MTV. They are not imbibing western cultures, they are just imitating it. Culture is a product of history and geography of the region concerned, not of television channels and commercials. It would be dishonest to say that I am any different from the ‘youngsters’ I have just talked about except – except that I am now conscious of what is happening, of what I am a part of. Should I ever choose to wear my jeans in a way so as to expose my underwear I’ll do so with the knowledge that I’ve been manipulated into it by some very powerful, purely profit motivated economic forces and with the knowledge that I also have the choice of resisting these forces by saving the rest of humanity from an unpleasant experience – a peek at my underwear. You see, I am not superman and I just hate being manipulated.
Tail Piece: I must mention that there are a few honourable exceptions that have fought the malaise that is engulfing Indian newspapers.

 

About a Rock.

I AM A ROCK.
CRUMBLE AND CRACK, I MIGHT.
BEND, I SHALL NOT.

I AM A ROCK.

Monday, March 06, 2006 

Stories from Lansdowne.

We should have been tired. We should have been sleeping like logs. We were not. The six of us had traveled 300kms – by road, walked a longer distance than we would normally cover in a month, we had pedaled those tourist boats for what seemed like eternity. We should have been tired, but we were not. We were in Lansdowne: a sleepy retreat set in the Himalayan foothills. Whether it was the fresh mountain air that energized us, or our excitement over escaping from our mundane lives for a couple of days; we did not know. That evening as we sat down by the fire, under the starry night sky we did know this – it was going to be a long night.

And a long night it was. We were joined by our driver, Ajeet and the driver of another party, Ashish. As the whiskey and cigarettes did the rounds the conversation ran berserk, jumping from stock markets to politics, pausing now and then to acknowledge the tranquil beauty of the mountains until we learnt that Ashish was brought up in Garhwal. We started enquiring about places to visit… the usual tourist queries. I do not know how it happened but almost suddenly I found myself listening to the legends of Garhwal.

Ashish told us about the bleeding trees near the Tarakeshwar temple, a few kilometers away. “If you snap a branch of one of these trees, they’ll bleed.” he said with in a tone only genuine awe can fabricate. “Not just some red colored liquid,” he continued “but real blood.” Without waiting for us to enquire in to the causative aspects of the phenomenon he began “Long ago, there was a man who promised to visit a nearby shrine with his bride once he got married. He did not keep his promise. As the bridal party visited Tarakeshwar and began walking back ignoring the smaller shrine, there was a blinding flash of light that turned each member of the group into a tree.” He looked at our faces searching for something. Some of us were skeptical some of us amused. While my usual self was silently laughing in mockery of the ignoramus’ stories, another part of me wanted to be spell bound by the narrative.

Ashish however, did not seem to notice the raised eyebrows or the smirks. He seemed to have found what he was searching for – an interested audience. And so he told us of the river with warm currents during the winters and cold currents during the summers. He told us of the tree near Doggadda where Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Bhagat Singh practiced their shooting – “once you are in its shade you cannot hear a single thing from the outside,” he told us. Finally he told us about Sepoy Jaswant Singh. It was an impressive narration which this author is incapable of reproducing in English. But here is the gist of the sepoy’s story.

One morning when Sepoy Jaswant Singh saw the enemy troops advancing, he decided to do everything he could to stop them. He dug out a long trench and aimed a good number of guns towards the enemy and then proceeded to connect the triggers of all the rifles with a rope. Whenever he tugged the rope all the guns would fire in unison. And so the sepoy fooled the enemy in to believing that it was up against a huge force for one-and-a-half days. He radioed base while he held the line – alone. But his ploy was to be discovered before back up arrived. The sepoy was massacred.

The sepoy’s spirit however, is still alive. It slaps the lazy soldier into wakefulness when he ignores the wake up bugle and chides the soldier wearing a shabby uniform. The sepoy’s room in the Lansdowne cantonment has been left untouched. Every morning his uniform is found washed and pressed and his shoes polished to a glitter. As evening approaches they get worn out only to be restored to a prim condition by the sepoy’s ghost for the next morning’s duty. He even receives promotions from the army. He is now Brigadier Jaswant Singh.

As the narrator's voice enveloped his unsuspecting audience, the shadowy silhouettes of the oaks and blue pines seemed to grow larger. The looming mountains in the distant darkness began to close in towards the fire. Sitting there and this time, trying to break the spell of Ashish’s tales I found it easy and I must admit, comforting to believe in what he said. His simplistic world view with Gods, devils and spirits seemed befitting to the time and place.

We had dinner by the campfire. Ashish and Ajeet retired for the night. They had a job to do next morning. After choosing to deliberate on the supernatural for a while our conversation decided to veer towards things we knew little about – superconductivity, teleportation and taxes. We spotted a few constellations in the night sky, a pastime few city dwellers can afford and we retired as well.

The next morning our snobbish perception of villages as honest places free of malice was rudely shaken. There was a theft. A mobile phone was stolen in the guest house. Urban amenities did not leave their immediate cousins – urban evils on their way to the villages or so we learnt. Fingers were raised towards Ajeet and Ashish, the only outsiders who shared the room with the owner of the phone. They both preferred paying compensation to being taken to the local police. Ashish had a resigned look on his face. He did not protest nor did he show any signs of anger or irritation. He just resigned and paid up. May be he was thinking of the mouths to feed at home. May be all his life’s worries became twice as larger or may be he was regretting driving past one of those road side shrines that dot the Himalayas without paying obeisance to the deity there.

Some of us strongly felt that his punishment was inappropriate, and so Ashish was compensated for the amount he paid – five hundred rupees. There seemed to be no one to compensate him for the infernal burden of blame that he is now ordained to carry forever.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 

Make way for the King of Kings.

Its about the visit of President Bush. I wanted to write about it but here is something waaaaaaaaaaay better. Found it in the newspaper today.

I wanted to paste the entire thing over here but that would have meant violating the copyright of two institutsions that I respect, The Hindu and Arundhati Roy (Yes she IS an institution). However I felt a teaser would do no harm. So here goes...

But when George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished stone, millions of Indians will wince.


I've been wincing since morning.

Sunday, February 26, 2006 

A Reminiscence

My earliest memories of fear, loathing and hatred are all associated with one institution – school – that temple of knowledge and learning, that haven of all that is safe and secure, that custodian of millions of happy childhood memories, that place where you make the best of friendships and the most harmless of enemies, the place everyone wants to go back to and nobody can - I hated it.

When it came to avoiding school I was as wily as any kid could be. My weekends were spent on chalking out elaborate plans to avoid school, one of which even included causing mortal harm to a particular individual, whose name now escapes my memory. Thinking back, I find the reason for the plans failing to be very trivial – I had no transport. My bike was crashed by this particular individual. I was naïve enough back then to believe in God and I used to pray for suitable weather every night. Torrential rainfall and tropical cyclones were always on the agenda. But with time it gradually dawned upon me that conspiring with God is seldom fruitful.

The most disastrous of all plans was the one where I used to avoid my homework and go into fits a few minutes before school begging and pleading my mother to let me stay home, trying to move her cold heart by conjuring images of me being caned by a ruthless monster of a teacher. It never worked; I got caned more often than once before finally writing of my dear mother, the only creative member of our aesthetically challenged family as an unimaginative person and deciding to get whacked hard enough to get a bruise as proof of my truthfulness. But alas the teachers, I later learnt, through years of dedicated industry had become adept at the art of inflicting invisible injuries.

I have succeeded at many of the enterprises that I took up as a boy and this one was to be no different. My most successful plan involved the greatest excuse of all time – sickness. It was a few days before I accepted that there is no way I could increase my body temperature, even hot showers failed in pushing the mercury up (btw a few days ago a friend of mine with a wealth of traditional knowledge and interests bordering on witchcraft offered me a piece of extremely delayed advice which has rekindled some childhood memories and sparked this post. She suggested putting a slice of onion under an armpit for day as a remedy for chronic good health – highly debatable, nevertheless worthy of a try). Finally, I came up with a plan only the ingenuity of a twelve year old could formulate – simple, painless, elegant, flawless and easily implemented. All I had to do was wake up in the morning and decide whether school was a good idea for the day or not. Once I concluded that I it was not which most often was the case, all I had to do was pay frequent visits to the loo and claim that I had a bad stomach. May be it was not so elegant however unlike a stomach ache or any other ache it did not involve ceaseless enactment of the symptoms. Unlike the claim of a fever this one could not be validated unless an unacceptable invasion of bathroom privacy occurs which again is easily prevented with the aid of the greatest security tool of all time - the lock. Thus I reigned supreme for more than a year avoiding school as often as possible without raising suspicions over my veracity or concern over my health. It was not easy. Convincing my mother was never easy. She can spot a spy’s lie from a mile away. A kid’s was nothing. Sometimes I had to turn to my dad to hear those sweet words “okay, you can stay at home today”. My father would say it differently - he’d smile (in retrospect I realize that it was no ordinary smile, it was a knowing one) and say “Of course you can skip school” and I’d be so elated that I’d find it hard to maintain my “I am not feeling good” body language.

There was one more problem; I used to get bored in the loo. Finally, with the proliferation of cable TV to our small town I discovered that reading is an activity that can be pursued during my long and lonely sojourns in the bathroom. Comics and Gastro Intestinal diseases became the best of my friends during those days.

So on and so forth the days passed until I got to class X. Doing well in class X was important, I was told. By then, I was vigorously pursuing a newly discovered activity in the loo, mentioning which would be inappropriate here; and the prospect of skipping school was becoming increasingly attractive. I was spending more and more time with my textbooks and lesser and lesser time on the playground. I was nearing my breaking point. I was desperately waiting for my voice to turn masculine so that I could call a bomb hoax at school. Winter came and with it a blessing in disguise… throat irritation. It was bad but not severe. I played my cards well and the doctor suggested that I should take a rest. Back then father was working in a small and laid back town about five hours away. I took a couple of weeks off from school and joined him there. It was bliss. As the days melted away in tagging along with dad on his camps and playing volley ball and badminton with him and his staff little did I know that I was having one of the best times of my life.

Yesterday I was practicing dad’s knowing smile in my bathroom mirror and I should say I got pretty close. Some day I’ll have a kid and I am pretty sure that the poor fellow would be dying to see that smile on my face every Monday morning.

Friday, February 24, 2006 

A Political Discourse.

Tom: what the fuck is all this about man?
Harry: I am going to tell you about the nuclear deal that India and U.S. are trying to enter into.
Tom: and why should I be listening to this?
Harry: hmmm, lets see … (pause) … ‘cause it makes good small talk, you can get chicks to talk to you at parties and stuff.
Tom: no wonder you don’t have a girl
Harry: hey! I have a girl!
Tom: yeah right, any girl who happens to turn her head towards you when you are looking at her, is your girl… and you are always ogling at them.
Harry: I must protest but in the interest of the author who is penning this conversation I’ll put it away for the time being and I’ll tell you about the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Tom: Gaaaaaaaaawd! How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to listen….. ouch! Aaah! Stop hitting me.
Harry: I did not hit you.
Tom: ???
Harry: The author did.
Tom: wtf! (slap slap) stop!
Harry: stop cussing and you wont get hit.
Tom: fu….ouch! This is insane. What the devil is this thing.
Harry: It’s the author so, just shut up and listen to the words that he puts in my mouth.
Tom: I don’t seem to have fuc (slap)…. what the (slap)…. I (slap)…. Ok(slap) … WHAT! I said OKAY (gets pat on the shoulder while indignantly shaking his head). Alright man speak. Whats all this deal thingie?
Harry: Well, its just a deal both the parties get something and if all goes well they are supposed to live happily ever after.
Tom: So whats India getting?
Harry: Lets see It’ll be recognised as a responsible nuclear power with advanced technology and once it fulfills its obligations in the deal it’ll get help from NSG countries which
Tom: Whoa! Wait a minute. NSG?
Harry: That stands for Nuclear suppliers group. You see, when India tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, the Americans did not like it. They so did not like it that they formed a group of countries and called themselves NSG. These guys got together and said ‘okay, even third world shit like India has nuclear weapons now. They’ll wipe themselves from the face of the planet and take us along with them. We got to do something about this. Here is what we do: we will put in rules and regulations so that whenever we transfer nuclear technology and fuel to a country which doesn’t have weapons we are assured that our help is not used to make weapons’ and so they use two sets of rules right now: The NSG guidelines and the IAEA (Int’l Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.
Tom: I don’t believe they called India third world shit man. They are mature people..
Harry: One American President is known to have referred to one Indian PM as a Witch. But yes they did not call India ‘third world shit’. I was just spicing it up.
Tom: No use man its so booooooooring that even… whats her name?... Sylvia saint won’t be able to spice it up. WHACK! Ouch! (shouts) HE made me say it! (now whispers) the author is into porn man. WHACK! (mumbles) asshole.
Harry: That is untrue. The author is not into porn, (pause) currently. However, as a well educated man he makes sure that he knows a li’l something about everything. He likes to be knowledgeable.
Tom: yeah whatever. So what does India get out of it?
Harry: India gets to have a citizen with very balanced and mature views on wide ranging topics including pornography.
Tom: I meant from the deal man…what else does India get?
Harry: Yes, the deal … India will get help from NSG countries. They’ll give fuel to India’s reactors and give tech. support and stuff.
Tom: But then, what makes them so sure that India will not use the stuff to make weapons.
Harry: That assurance is included in the deal as well. India will have to separate its nuclear facilities into civilian (those which produce power) and military (those which make weapons). Once it does that, it has to accept IAEA safeguards on its civilian facilities and these safeguards will give confidence to NSG members that their stuff will remain where its intended to … that is in civilian facilities.
Tom: Seems fair man. I mean if somebody is doing business with you to make electricity, it would not be right to use their services to make weapons. But what are these safeguards anyways.
Harry: well, people from IAEA will monitor fuel and equipment that goes in and goes out of the facility. They’ll try to account for all the material. For instance if you take some uranium from a reactor and put it into a bomb, then they are supposed to catch you before you put the bomb in a missile and stop you before you put the missile on a launch pad. These people will also make sudden inspections of a facility. They’ll check if all the personnel are well dressed and well behaved or not. If they….(interrupted)
Tom: what!
Harry: kidding.
Tom: I find no humour in it. (Rip). HE TORE MY POCKET.! This is getting serious man.
Harry: just be patient and mind your words. He’ll let you off once this is over.
Tom: I think he is an egomaniac…(pause)…. I think he’s going to kill me for saying that… Tell my girl that I loved her. Tell her, (gulp) that, that… I am sorry for … all the … premature …
Harry: premature what.?
Tom: wait a min. he did not hit me.
Harry: The author wants you to know that we can take a coffee and cigarettes break while he contemplates upon your comment on him.
Tom: Thank God!
Harry: The author is our God.

Tom: This is not Coffee this is tea. I thought I was going to get Coffee… and these are not cigarettes! These are fucking candy sticks! What kind of a joke is this? Why doesn’t this author guy leave us alone.
Harry: I really don’t think you’d want him to leave us alone ‘cause once he does that we’ll cease to exist.
Tom: Thanks that helps.
Harry: So, the deal… Why Americans are going for it is not directly apparent. Because they seem to be getting very little at least on paper … India will support America’s initiative to bring in the FMCT(Fissile Missile Cutoff Treaty), a treaty which will cap the weapons capable fissile material (the nuclear material used to make bombs) of all signatory nations to the levels at the time of the treaty coming into force. Also India restated its commitment to its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing.
Tom: That’s very good. It’s definitely a positive thing. But what is America getting out of it.
Harry: well nothing as tangible as what India is getting but definitely much more.
Tom: how is that?
Harry: Look, the FMCT is not going to come into force anytime soon. America wants it ‘cause its finding it hard to maintain all those weapons it built up during the cold war. It finally decided that it has enough. But, it doesn’t want countries like china amassing weapons ‘cause that would amount to dilution of their power. So they had this brilliant idea to put a freeze on all weapons material and they called the idea FMCT. Obvoiusly, China wont buy it. They want weapons too. If the chinese dont sign FMCT nobody will. So the FMCT is a non issue for atleast a coupla decades. As for the Indian moratorium on testing, its still unilateral as in India has not gone into an agreement with an other country saying that it wont test weapons. So, that too is basically not a concrete thing.
Tom: What is America getting out of it then?
Harry: America wants its people to believe that they are making the world safer. But its hard to believe that once you graduate from kindergarten in a non-american school.
Tom: Just give me the answer what is America getting out of the deal?
Harry: An ally. An ally which will help America get a hold on the Asian scenario.
Tom: Why don’t they hook up the Chinese then? they are stronger than the Indians.
Harry: The Americans don’t like the Chinese. It’s traditional rivalry. China was and still is a Soviet ally. If they make friends with Chinese they might lose the Japanese ‘cause china and japan have problems with each other. In fact America follows what is called as a ‘China containment policy’
Tom: Chinese are not a virus!
Harry: Apparently somebody is treating them like one.
Tom: So you are telling me that America is making friends with India so that they can fight the Chinese.
Harry: I would not say ‘friends’, ‘allies’ more like. They are trying to make allies and If I had to use ‘fight’ I’d use it in the context of economic and political warfare not military.
Tom: whatever, both the parties seem to be getting something out of it, so it seems like a fine deal to me. They should sign it. End of discussion let me go now.
Harry: No! there is an issue here.
Tom: what?
Harry: America doesn’t seem to like the way India is separating its facilities into civilian and nuclear.
Tom: whats the fuss about separation. If the reactor is civilian its civilian if its military its military. Whats the big deal about it?
Harry: its not so simple. Nuclear substances are dual use items. They can be used to generate power or make bombs. So, India uses its reactors to generate power and also to make plutonium for the bombs.
Tom: It does?
Harry: Yes it does.
Tom: I don’t think I like India so much now. Why do they need nuclear weapons anyway?
Harry: The same reason why America, Russia, UK, Pakistan and shit loads of other countries need them.
Tom: But these countries are responsible nations. They can manage their reactors and all. They wont let accidents happen. But can’t say that about Indians you know. They are a careless bunch.
Harry: If you look at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three miles island, Chernobyl, falkland’s incident, AQ Khan network… its really hard to call them anything but responsible and safe. It’s a weapon for god’s sake. How can it be safe?
Tom: Well weapons may not be safe but they can keep you safe you know.
Harry: Yes, and that is India’s policy regarding nuclear weapons, Minimum credible deterrence (MCD). Indians say that they’ll have just enough weapons to scare off other countries… to prevent any attack or aggression. There is no way to validate how much is required to do that, nor is there any way to validate if they actual follow the policy. But then that’s what the Indians say.
Tom: I think this MCD thing is bull! (Laughs) scaring off other countries! (laughs louder) ... it wont work
Harry: Well, why do you think North Korea has not been attacked even though it has declared that it has weapons? Iraq was invaded on the claim that they have WMDs why not North Korea?
Tom: That only proves that MCD is bullshit, Iraq got invaded ‘cause it had WMDs. It’s only a matter of time before N. Koreans get it from the americans.
Harry: Iraq did not have WMDs as we now know. It was only CLAIMED that it has WMDs
Tom: The Americans did not know that before they went to war..
Harry: The Americans certainly did not. But if you are telling me that whoever makes those decisions in America did not, then you are either retarded or you just don’t care or both.
Tom: you better explain before you call me names. You know I am better than you at that mister genius.
Harry: If somebody had a WMD would you announce openly that you are coming to get him? Would you drive him to desperation? Would you put him in a position where he is forced to use everything he has against you? Or would you negotiate? There are international forums to address such issues. There is a well established diplomatic mechanism to defuse the situation and this is the way America and the rest of the world is dealing with the North Korean threat and that’s because that threat is very real. America did not do that in the case of Iraq because it was a virtual threat, it was in fact - not a threat at it was an opportunity.
Tom: whatever but I really don’t think I buy ‘driving saddam to desperation’ argument. I think once the Americans got in to Iraq saddam had no chance of deploying WMDs had he possessed any.
Harry: All it takes to deploy a chemical or biological weapon is a smuggler. You just have to take it in to enemy territory somehow.
Tom: That’s not easy man.
Harry: For you and me may be. But its very easy for somebody who wants to do that. Underestimating your enemy’s capabilities is one mistake that American authorities would not have done right after nine eleven. I don’t think so. They did not under estimate saddam’s abilities with WMDs ‘cause they knew that he did not have any.
Tom: alright okay anything you say. I really don’t want to talk about this Minimum credible deterrence thing. All I understand from what you say is that you seem to be a believer in nuclear weapons. You seem to be supporting India’s senseless obsession with nuclear weapons. You seem to be okay with more and more countries having weapons.
Harry: No! I am not! Nobody can be. But it is impossible to envisage a situation where a few countries have nuclear capabilities and the rest voluntarily decide to not have them. It simply won’t work. It is illogical to even attempt confining nuclear weapons to a few states. Its simple, if you have to survive in a rough neighbourhood, then you have to be just as rough. It’s a jungle out there and every one wants to hunt. The only alternative to nuclear weapons is total disarmament, not non-proliferation. There are no middle paths here. It is well accepted and in fact its mentioned as the longterm goal of the Non proliferation treaty as well.
Tom: India did not sign the Non proliferation treaty.
Harry: There is a reason for that. The treaty is discriminatory.
Tom: Int’l treaties are not discriminatory man. All nation states are treated equal.
Harry: Untrue on both counts. In 1968 the NPT said ‘if you have a weapon fine. Don’t give it to anyone else… if you don’t have a weapon we are sorry, please sign here and don’t ever dream of getting one’ and so it recognized 5 nuclear weapons states US, UK, China, Russia and France (joined later). Such discriminatory treatment is bound elicit resistance and it did. But many countries did fall in line. Right now only Pakistan, India, Cuba, Israel and North Korea are not signatories of the NPT. India for one argued that it will not sign a treaty unless the ethical grounds of such discriminatory treatment is justified and that the treaty should bring in total disarmament as an immediate goal, not as a long term objective.
Tom: I still think it should have signed it.
Harry: why?
Tom: It’d have helped non-proliferation. You know reducing nuclear weapons and stuff.
Harry: Why do you expect countries which do not have weapons to be ready to take on the responsibility of reducing the chances of nuclear war when countries which already have them do not?
Tom: America did take the responsibility. It pushed the NPT forward.
Harry: America tried to keep Non weapon states that way, and also to keep states with weapons that way. It tried to freeze the status quo while it was still on top. I would not call it responsible behavior. I call it self-centred, short sighted and narcissistic behaviour.
Tom: Well they have security issues.
Harry: Every goddamn country on the planet does.
Tom: Americans have the right to defend themselves by the best possible means.
Harry: So does everybody else.
Tom: Whats your point?
Harry: All I am saying is you cannot deny a sovereign state a right which another enjoys.
Its complete disarmament or nothing. The idea of non-proliferation is not unlike the idea trying to prevent a dam burst by sticking a finger in a crack in …
Tom: ummmmm now we are talking. (Whack!) alright go on…
Harry: So now Americans want to bring India’s breeder programme under safeguards by bringing it under the civilian list.
Tom: (grins) breeder programme huh! Interesting. Now I know why there are a billion of them.(rip! Rip!) my sleeeeves!
Harry: India has lots of thorium. But if you want to use it to generate power you first have to convert it to an isotope of Uranium (U233) and the breeder programme does just that. It is estimated that once this programme reaches its 3rd stage it’ll make India energy secure for about 300 years and that’s a huge thing for the Indians and the scientific community there has all their hopes pinned on it.
Tom: What difference does it make if they put it under safeguards… they can still make power can’t they?
Harry: In theory yes. In practice no. IAEA safeguards are restrictive irrespective of whatever bull shit they come up with. Rules and regulations are by definition restrictive and a restrictive and stifling environment is the last place where you'd expect creativity to blossom. Scientific research is a creative pursuit and like all other such pursuits it demands a hassle free environment and because the breeder programme is still in its developmental stages, the Indian scientists are strongly protesting against including it in the civilian reactor list that is, putting it under safeguards.
Tom: That’s a very flimsy argument you are giving me
Harry: There is more. The IAEA safeguards imply that India has to share certain aspects of its indigenous technology with IAEA., it is known that sharing it with the IEAE is equivalent to sharing it with the pentagon.
Tom: Its speculative even if its not the Americans are way ahead of Indians in technological prowess. I really don’t think that they’d give a shit about what the Indians are up to.
Harry: Not so ahead in breeder technology. Only two countries have knowledge of breeder technology. India and Russia. The Americans would want to know what the Indians are up to. And one more thing the Americans haven’t built a single power reactor since the mid 70’s they most probably don’t have anyone with hands on experience on building a reactor and those reactors are antiques. I really don’t accept that point you are trying to make.
Tom: But IEAE passing on information to the USA is certainly speculative. It has not been proven.
Harry: I agree. But the Indians have a very strong reason to put the breeder programme away from the safeguards – nuclear weapons. A breeder reactor pumps out weapons grade uranium directly, unlike say a Heavy water reactor. That means they can skip reprocessing of spent fuel which is expensive. That is the bottom line I guess - nuclear weapons.
Tom: I don’t like that.
Harry: what?
Tom: I mean hell! they’ll make weapons! America should definitely bring the breeder programme under safeguards.
Harry: That’s the American perspective. Every country has its interests.How are Indian effected if they put the breeder programme under safeguards? First of all India doesn’t need any technical help in this programme and even if it does only Russia can help it. Why would India want to put it under safeguards?
Tom: hmmmm to ensure that they don’t make more weapons.
Harry: I said why would INDIANS want to put it under safeguards?
Tom: well I donno. I don’t think they’d want to. But I think they should.
Harry: Should America put its reactors under safeguards?
Tom: Of course it should and I believe it does.
Harry: Yes it does put its reactors under IAEA safeguards and currently there are four american reactors under safeguards. Since 1981 IAEA inspected 16 of the 106 American nuclear facilities (there are about 400 reactors in the world by the way). India on the other hand has 15 nuclear reactors and IAEA safeguards are already in place at four of them. If only numbers had a voice India would not have had to fight so hard for recognition as a responsible nuclear power. But its might that speaks not numbers, not history, not what you did in the past, not your intentions, just might. Might did speak in this case... while America has the right to chose which reactors they’d want to place under safeguards India is being denied this very same right which according to the text of the deal it was supposed to have.
Tom: I don’t think this deal will go through unless somebody makes a compromise.
Harry: and I don’t think either party is ready to make one. Making a compromise me would be a very expensive mistake for India and an american compromise can't be sold to its people. By the way the deal has a lot more hurdles to pass. The nuclear facility separation plan has to be passed by US congress and then each of the NSG members have to ratify it only then the deal will come through.
Tom: what! Why? Why was I made to sit through this then?
Harry: Because the author is preparing for an exam where he needs to know stuff like this.
Tom: I feel sorry for this author guy. I think his life sucks (pow! Pow!).
Harry: It doesn’t he has a very laid back lifestyle. He doesn’t have to wake up on time or go to sleep on time. He is not associated with any instituitional\control structure. He is as free as he could ever be. He wont have such freedom as this ever again in his life.
Tom: For instance ….
Harry: For instance he’ll finish this post and we’ll both just vanish into a cloud of smoke.
Tom: I don’t believ … (zing! Zing! Two clouds of smoke appear where Tom and Harry were sitting. As the candysticks were rejoicing their increased chances of not landing in Tom or Harry’s stomach, they went up in smoke as well. So did the couches and so did the tea cups and so did the entire universe in which Tom and Harry used to live)

The author gets up stretches and lights a cigarette wondering why he wrote what he just wrote and if he should put it on his blog at all. He decides he will for somebody has to make Tom and Harry’s sacrifice worthwhile.

Thursday, February 23, 2006 

The Irrational Post

I have not written anything for the blog for some time now. So I am posting something that I wrote for myself. I must confess though, that what seems to be a description of myself in the lines that follow, is actually an expression of what I want to be. I think you’ll find this suggestion handy while negotiating the rest of the page – ignore and if possible excuse, any lines that make a presumptuous masquerade of being poetic. Read on…

Random thoughts flashing through my mind like the scenery in an express train's window. A wild flower here, a fisherman there, my countryside, my home town. I was born here or so my parents tell me. These green fields of paddy.. . half submerged,
as if the crop is floating on water, a shimmer of sunlight bounces off the water, catches my eye, men and women bent over, working the fields, in the distant back ground, coconut trees line the horizon, another field another pair of hands, another life spent with in these confines, in the cradle of nature, frogs in a well, or dolphins free in the ocean? Some of these people must have had the same ancestors as mine, i do not identify with them, i don’t connect, they are a different people, strangers in my hometown, strange eyes, strange tongues, i visit a temple, pay my obeisance to the rock that is meant to represent the phallus of God itself, i do not believe in God’s existence, nor do i believe in Its non existence, i do not see any reason to believe that even if It does exists It'd be listening to human prayers, and even if It is listening i am not so sure if It cares, i mean its a big universe that It has on Its hands. Well even if it does exist its highly improbable that it has a reproductive organ, and even if it did have a reproductive organ what are the chances that Its penis looks like ours. I mean what are the chances, why don’t people understand.

i join my hands, i am filled with shame that i am actually praying before a phallic symbol, i go through the ordeal, a pretense of a prayer, an ignominious travesty of rational thought, a disgusting compromise .... just to keep my guide pacified, he seems to be strong in his faith in the phallus, sometimes you just have to accommodate others in to your view. If you want to have any claims at having a wider perspective make sure you have spanned all the narrower ones. Accommodate them somehow. Ideologies are important, very, very important; a life without an ideology is a life not lived. I'd rather be a religious bigot than a blind spectator of ethnic cleansing, I’d rather be a dictator than silently watching his diktats being carried out, I’d prefer be committing murder to watching one with my hands tied, I’d prefer committing suicide to leading a dead life. Poetry aside i am just a man of thoughts of little consequence, a man of little action capable of eliciting very feeble reactions if any at all. i am bound, i feel bogged down, but i am not bogged down, i feel the guilt of humanity on my shoulders but i am not bending. I will walk right up to the end. i shall not stand still and watch the world go by, Eminem speak: this is no movie this is life or maybe life is a movie who knows? but what i do know is this ... if life is a movie, then I will not be one of those passively watching whatever it is that is being thrown at them. I will not be in the audience i will be out there on the screen and behind it as well. I am the actor, I am the director. i don’t care who is watching me though ... because when the movie is over they'll all get up and leave anyways. Doesn’t matter.... i don’t need an Oscar.... i don’t need recognition... I’d be more comfortable with a secondary role but i want it to be a good one.... i would not mind that role where you have to walk past the celebrity hero on the pavement.... brushing shoulders may be, or may be a punch in on the nose.... or may be a pat on the shoulder ... i would not mind that.... but i don’t want to be one of those people who get filmed without knowing that they are being filmed ... i want to feel life ... i ... now wait a minute do i really.... what the fuck is feeling life anyway ...is going to your native place for a day or two and making irrational associations with the scenery and the people feeling life? is going to the movies with your family and acting happy and satisfied feeling life? is having a migraine feeling life? Is waking up late in the morning feeling life? Is pumping iron feeling life?